


The Moon Knight's Tale

by VeloxVoid



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ashe Ubert deserves to be happy, Books, Chivalry, Comfort Reading, Fight Scene, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gen, Happy Ending, Lost items, Prompt Fic, Secrets, The Great Fodlan Bakeoff, ramble, traumatic past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24624595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid
Summary: The small fable means the world to Ashe. As the first book he learned to read unaided, he almost cries with relief upon finding it again. He begins to read it once more, and soon loses himself in the happy memories.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30
Collections: Findings of the Monastery





	The Moon Knight's Tale

“What’ve you got there, Ashe?”

“Aah!” As the voice sounded suddenly from behind him, the hairs on the back of Ashe’s neck stood on end at once. Outside of his dormitory bedroom, with the sun setting in the sky to cast a low orange light across the bricks all around him, Ashe had thought he was alone. He spun hurriedly to be met by huge blue eyes, and he held his prize close to his chest out of instinct. “A-Annette! You scared me!”

Annette gave a little giggle, but it was not the innocent, chirpy one she usually gave. This one was laced with something a little darker - something mischievous. “I can see that! Why so on edge?”

“Oh, I’m not on edge--”

“Is it a secret, what you're so _desperately_ guarding? Your secret diary, perhaps...?” The girl placed her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels, fixing Ashe with a cunning smile.

“A… secret diary…?” He was confused. “Why, no, this is just my--”

“You can tell me! I’m not gonna _gossip_ with anyone…” And yet the twist to her lips and spark in her eye told otherwise.

Ashe rolled his eyes slightly without intending. “If I tell you the truth, will you leave me alone?” he asked lightly.

“Oh, for sure.” Annette winked.

With a heaving sigh, Ashe let a playful smile curl the corners of his lips. What was a white lie, to get an intrusive somebody off his back? “You got me. It’s my diary. But, don't tell anyone!" he said - an attempt to give truth to his lie.

A high giggle made Annette clap her hands over her own mouth. “Oh, Ashe, really!?” Her eyes beheld him, bright and swimming with mischief, like a cloudless sky of azure burning fiercely in the sun.

The real sky outside was not bright blue, but was instead becoming dark. As Ashe returned Annette’s giggle, waving goodbye to her and entering his dormitory, the windows let in the indigo light of the evening, waning beams of orange streaking across it as the sun set.

This light was comforting: dusk. It was Ashe’s favourite time of the day. In his childhood, dusk was when he would sneak around in the shadows, picking the pockets of those on their way to taverns, and slipping goods from the last calls of bakers and vendors. Those memories were not good ones; instead, the fondness of evenfall came from Ashe’s days as Lonato’s son, when he would crawl into his bed to be read bedtime stories by either Christophe or Lord Lonato himself. Those times were when he would learn to read himself, following the words slowly but precisely. He loved reading, and his journey towards being able to was one he cherished well.

Of course, the small, cloth-bound book Ashe held close to his chest was not his diary. It held no secrets, nor deep desires, nor the private whisperings of his inner mind. But it was so dear to him - so precious and invaluable - that he wanted to keep it hidden. He did not want Annette to know what it truly was, for the fear he would lose it again.

Ashe pulled off his boots, padded slowly across the room, and sat down on his bed. He placed the book in his lap, taking in the faded, peeling gold lettering on the front:

_The Moon Knight’s Tale._

A sigh of relief escaped his nose. He had it back. Ashe loved this book, but had somehow misplaced it on his journey to the monastery’s small graveyard, where he loved to sit beneath the shade of a tree and read. The panic that had racked him had been almost too much to bear - this book meant the world to him.

It was the first book he’d ever read unaided. _Loog and the Maiden of the Wind_ was a book dear to his heart as well - the one that had inspired him to read in the first place - but he’d needed assistance from his adoptive family to make his way through it. _The Moon Knight’s Tale_ was different; he’d chosen this book for its handsome cover - royal blue cloth with bold golden lettering, with a picture on the front so striking that he almost got chills as he set his eyes upon it.

Ashe crawled across his bed to the small table that sat beside it to grab his box of matchsticks. As he lit one, the flame flickered feebly upon the small sliver of wood, but the light it gave off was potent. How could something so small - mere embers against the room’s abyssal darkness - throw out such luminescence? Ashe knew not, but he smiled as he pressed the match against the wick of his candle, hearing it give a faint hiss as it stole the flame.

Candlelight was his favourite kind of light. In dusk, the best time of day, beneath candlelight, Ashe felt truly safe. Content. _Happy._ It was not tucked up in bed, with his siblings snoring softly next to him as his parents whispered goodnight; no feeling would ever be quite so fond as that one, but reading by candlelight came a close second.

Ashe snuffed the match’s flame and began to undress, soon garbing himself in the soft cotton pyjamas that he kept beneath his pillow. He threw his academy uniform to the floor, and hastened to scramble under the sheets, enveloping himself in the cosy warmth and the promise of slumber.

Only then did he look at the image on the front of the book: a knight standing powerfully beneath a crescent moon, sword raised high above their head. _The Moon Knight’s Tale_ was perhaps his dearest possession; it was one of the only personal belongings he had to his name, after Christophe had secretly given him leave to take it with him to the Officer’s Academy. He could not lose it - not again.

He opened it, hearing the battered, broken spine creak in protest. The musty scent filled his nostrils at once, of old, crumbling parchment and of events long-passed, and of memories deep within Lonato’s mansion of when he was young and unburdened.

No matter how many times he read it, it always felt new. Each time awakened something within him as he dove into the story, taking the place of the _Moon Knight_ to explore the vast world within its pages. The fable was only short - a mere hundred pages long or so - but within the words stretched a whole new plane - a universe that Ashe stood in the centre of, wearing his heavy plate mail, to venture through as the chapters rolled into one another.

The Crescent Moon War was a frightsome time, but one that Ashe - the _Moon Knight_ \- was not afraid of. He was bold, and hardened, and had been in so many combats before that wielding his sword _Starshine_ came as second nature to him. He had one goal: to win. To fight for his allies, to rout the enemy, and to seize victory in his steel-armoured fingertips.

Months passed as he trained for the war; he joined the armed forces as a lone wolf to fight alongside his people, and spent almost a whole year growing. He experienced love and loss, but above it all, he was only devoted to one thing: winning the Crescent Moon War. Once the time finally came, and the enemy advanced to their territory, the _Moon Knight_ mounted an impassive steed that was as battle-ready as he was. The two armies met upon even ground - an impressive expanse of flat grass - and charged at one another in their resolve. All around him, steel met steel and roared above the sounds of anguish: warhorns giving directions, screams of the dying and of the victorious, the panicked calls of horses… Each noise rang inside of the Moon Knight’s polished helmet and lit a fire inside of him as he flew at the enemy’s chief, _Starshine_ held high--

Until he felt sleep call to him. Ashe was torn from the _Tale’s_ world with a startling jolt, the battlefield fading from around him and his armour dissipating into his pyjamas. Seemingly for the first time since setting his eyes upon the print, he blinked, finding his eyes strained and blurry as he watched his bedroom materialise around him. The light of the candle beside him cried out for help, and Ashe turned to see that the pale wax had become a mere puddle in the base of the chamberstick, a tiny, fluttering flame trying not to drown in its centre.

His time was up. He had not finished _The Moon Knight’s Tale_ tonight, but he knew the ending well. He pursed his lips and blew to put the sputtering candle out of its misery, and was thrust into darkness at once. Long gone were the indigo and amber of the sunset outside; Ashe could see scintillating stars and a plump moon filling the inky blanket of the night sky. He settled himself down beneath his bed sheets and let his heavy eyelids close. The book still lay on the mattress beside him, but Ashe cared not; it was safe there.  
  
Once more as a drowse filled his exhausted brain, he took the form of the _Moon Knight._ The field filled with soldiers and screams surrounded him, and a searing ambition filled his chest; he would win the Crescent War.


End file.
